


too much (phan)

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, i don't wanna put spoilers in the tags :(
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8591191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dan's come up with a brilliant plan to get more subscribers. The best part? It's totally foolproof.





	1. step one, step two

step one: the idea

 

_omgomg if phan was real i would actually die_

_oh my god can you believe this???_

_love eyes lester is REAL_

Dan shut his laptop and sighed. The concept of ‘Phan’ hadn’t annoyed him for years, but it did make him feel like he was missing out on something. He had absolutely no desire to date Phil, so it wasn’t that.

Perhaps, he thought, it was the popularity that came with being a couple. After all, who didn’t love it when their ship became reality? He remembered a particularly good episode of an anime he had watched where the two main male characters finally got together. The fanblogs had gone absolutely nuts, and he could imagine a similar (but much larger) effect if ‘Phan’ became canon.

The possibilities raced through his mind, one after another - promotions, more subscribers, and sponsorships, just to name a few. He knew that companies and even Youtube itself were leaping to show their support for LGBT+ rights. He and Phil were obviously both men, so they had that going for them.

Dan suddenly leapt up as if he’d been stung and clapped his hands together. Everything had just clicked in his mind. If he and Phil wanted to take the next step as YouTube stars, all they had to do was get together, and that much he already knew. But what he had just realized was that it didn’t have to be for real. All it would take was telling Phil, making a video to announce it, and holding hands sometimes. They could do that so easily, and the benefits would be endless. He was almost certain Phil would agree to all this.

It would just take a little bit of convincing.

 

step two: tell phil

 

Dan dropped a bowl of chips next to Phil and sank into browsing-position-minus-laptop beside him. “Hey, Danny boy,” Phil said with a wide grin on his face. Dan rolled his eyes.

“Stop it, you spoon.”

“Aww, come on, Danny, I’m just having fun. Anyways, what do you wanna watch?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe _Yuri On Ice_?”

“Sounds good to me,” Phil said, waving the remote at the TV. Dan’s heart started to race as Phil settled in beside him. He had been wanting to ask about his fake Phan plan for over a week now, but he just hadn’t managed to find the time. Now the moment was right.

“Phil.”

“Mhm?”

“I’ve been thinking about something,” he said in one nervous breath, a sense of relief washing over him. “Like, to help with the subscriber count and stuff.”

“Oh? Are you worried about that?” Phil said absentmindedly. He took a handful of chips from the bowl and promptly dropped it all over the couch. Dan leaned over to help him clean up and continued to talk.

“Mm, a little. I was thinking, well, you know how Phan is so popular?”

Phil froze in place. “Dan, what are you suggesting?”

Dan laughed and dropped the last few chips back into the bowl. “Relax. I’m thinking that maybe, well, we could fake it.”

“Fake it?” The words left a strange bitter taste in Phil’s mouth. “Like, tell the fans we’re dating when we’re not?”

“Yeah. I mean, think about it. It would be so easy to convince them. We could just announce it with a video and make a few couple-y tweets and things. After that, there’s not much else we have to do.”

Phil exhaled slowly and leaned back in his seat. “God, Dan. I don’t know about that.”

“Imagine how good it would be for us, though!” Dan persisted. “More subs, more promotions and things, and a lot more fan involvement. I’ve thought about this for ages.”

“I think we have too much fan involvement already,” Phil muttered.

“Come on, Phil. It won’t hurt anyone.”

“I can’t stomach the thought of lying to the fans,” Phil said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, well, it won’t be the first time.”

Phil sighed and looked over at Dan, not allowing himself to make proper eye contact. “I guess so. I mean, in theory, it would be a sensible move. But I think it would just get us in deep trouble if people, you know, found out.”

Dan ran a hand through his already messy hair and gave himself a moment to think. “Well,” he began. “I think that would be difficult. Hiding a relationship is one thing, but creating one is much, much easier. Plus, we’ve apparently been dropping hints about Phan since 2009. I think it would be hard to disprove.”

Phil took some chips and stuffed them in his mouth to avoid having to argue. When he swallowed, he looked back at the TV with a blank expression. “I’ll think about it.”

 


	2. step three, step four

step three: convince phil

 

A week later, Phil crept into the kitchen, being careful so as not to smash into the glass door. He was on a mission to get some tea without waking Dan up. However, he couldn’t help but grab Dan’s cereal and take a few pieces. Then a few more. Then -

“Phil, are you eating my cereal again?”

“I’m sorry!” Phil said quickly, but he was laughing. He sat on the counter beside the cereal box. “Will you put the kettle on?”

“Sure thing,” Dan said. He turned on the sink and stuck their kettle underneath it to fill it up. “Tea or coffee?”

“Tea, please. How did you sleep?” Phil said cheerfully, rubbing his eyes.

Dan ignored him and put the kettle onto the stove, staring straight ahead. When he managed to speak, he found himself still fixated on the cupboards. “Have you thought about it yet?” he said nervously. Phil sighed.

“I’m not sure, okay? I’m really not,” he said. “It just feels manipulative, to tell you the truth. I wouldn’t want to be lied to like that.”

“But do you think it would work?”

“I have no doubts about that,” Phil said uncomfortably.

Then I have a compromise,” Dan said carefully. He turned around to face Phil and cleared his throat. “We do this, right? We hold hands once in awhile, we make a video announcing it, we do dumb couple-y things sometimes. Nothing too extravagant, but we keep it in the fans’ minds.”

“Okay...”

“And if it’s too much - like, if it’s really too much, like we can’t handle it at all - we just, well, we stop. We ‘break up’,” Dan said, putting air quotes around his last two words. “And we’re done with the whole thing. If you want to end it at any point, that’s totally fine. We'll do it.”

Phil exhaled slowly and leaned back against the cupboards behind him. There was a long, painfully heavy moment of silence before he spoke again.

“Okay. Yes. Let’s do it. But we _have_ to drop it as soon as we need to, no matter how good things are going.”

“Of course, you spork.” Without warning he stepped forward and quickly hugged Phil, a rare gesture that was usually punctuated by an awkward apology once he pulled away. This time, though, he just cracked a goofy grin.

“I think we’ve got a very important video to make today. I bet we can have it out by nine if we start now.”

 

step four: make the video

 

_An Announcement._

_danisnotonfire_

_3,456,908 views_

 

“Hello, internet!”

“Hi guys!”

Some awkward laughter.

“No, okay, but this is serious.”

“Me and Dan have something incredibly important to tell you all.”

“It’s taken a very, very, very long time for us to decide to tell you this.”

“But after almost a year of thinking about it and carefully considering it, we’ve decided to just come out and say it.”

“We’re... together.”

Silence, smiles, eye contact.

“Feels good to say it, doesn’t it, Danny?”

“Yup.”

Silence, uncertainty, a feeling of relief.

“Love you.”

"Love you too."  


_Phangirl666: GUYS IM SCREAMING ITS REAL ITS REAL ITS REAL_

_eliza xoxo: I CANT BREATHE_

_XxDangerGirlxX: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i'm bad at story progression ahahaha  
> but anyways hope you like this <3


	3. step five, step six

step five: drink it in

 

When Phil woke up, everything felt the same for about five minutes. It wasn’t until he reached over to grab his phone that he remembered what had gone up on Dan’s channel the night before. Each and every notification was an all-caps text message or comment from a friend or fan.  He didn’t reply to a single one and logged into his Tumblr instead. 

About half an hour later, his door creaked open to reveal a pajama-clad, messy-haired Dan. Phil shrieked and buried himself under his blankets.

“Dan! I don’t have a top on!” he said.

“Oh, come on, I’ve seen it all before,” Dan replied. He waved his phone at Phil. “Anyways, I assume the giant shitstorm has hit your side of the internet as well?”  
“Yeah, although I think that’s a little bit of an understatement,” Phil said. “Will you toss me a shirt?”

Dan picked up a red t-shirt off of the floor and sat down on his friend’s bed. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

Phil put it on the shirt and gazed at Dan in contented silence while the morning sun filled the room. When Dan caught his eye and grinned, Phil felt his heart flutter. 

“What are you thinking about?” Dan whispered.

“Uh, well, the whole thing, I guess,” Phil said. He clenched his fist at his side and realized his palms were sweating. “Sorry. I’m just really nervous. My heart is all, like, woah!”  
Dan laughed out loud. “Yeah, same.”  
Phil wiped his sweaty hand on his sheets. For some reason, it felt like one of those days from years ago when he and Dan could be together without ‘Phan’ hanging over them or making things awkward. Phil had thought that those days were gone forever, only existing in tiny amounts in short clips from before 2012, but now he was feeling it all more than he ever had.

“Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m so glad we did this.”   


 

step six: post about it

 

Their original plan had been to drop a joking tweet about it in the morning - something along the lines of “wow you guys is it really that much of a shock lol” - but there was so much chaos that they decided to wait a couple days before saying anything at all online. When they did, it was a simple Instagram post of them eating bagels. 

“Look at this,” Dan said, scrolling through the comments. “‘Don’t act like you didn’t just drop the biggest fucking bombshell in the world, Danny boy.’ That’s my favorite one so far.”

“I think my favorite one was ‘ADSHFKJKLHNGJKDL’,” Phil said.  
“Did you really just find a way to pronounce that?”

“Yup.”

“Wow. Anyway, I think we need to address it,” Dan said as he opened Twitter. “Just something understated like the first idea, maybe?”

“No, hang on, wait,” Phil said quickly. “Don’t do anything. Let’s take a picture of us holding hands, like just our hands, in front of a nice sunset or something and post it without a caption.”  
“That’s so cheesy, and yet... It’s so fucking perfect,” Dan said with a nod. “Good one.”

Phil flushed with pride and sat up a little straighter. “Thanks!”

“We’ll have to wait a little for a good opportunity, though,” Dan said. Phil drooped again.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Hey, it’s still a good idea. We can just do it in a week or two when the hype is in danger of dying. It’ll pick things up again,” Dan said reassuringly. He patted Phil on the back. “Don’t worry.”


	4. step seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! I promise I'm still working on this, just slowly.

It had been a couple of months since the boys had ‘come out’, and things were going swimmingly. Both of their subscriber counts had gone up rapidly, they’d touched upon the subject in live shows, and they shared the occasional hand-holding or ‘domestic’ photo when they needed to. Phil often couldn’t help but wonder why he’d rejected this idea in the first place.  
He also couldn’t believe how much it brought them together. They hadn’t shared an awkward silence in weeks and seemed to be on the same wavelength more often than not. When Dan wanted a new photo, Phil was just thinking about it. When Phil decided to slip a ‘Phan’ reference into a live show, Dan laughed his ass off.   
Sometimes, though, when they were lying next to each other on the couch, Dan would say something casual and Phil would feel a little flutter in his chest. Or maybe Dan would be making breakfast and the light catching his brown eyes would leave Phil speechless for a moment. Perhaps, he thought, this was why he was liking the plan more and more.  
He groaned and rolled over, tangling his sheets up between his legs. Thinking like this was dangerous. If he got too invested, then he’d never be able to back out, or worse - he would take it too far.  
But here he was, thinking about it all over again. Maybe Dan suggested this because he felt the same way. Maybe his feelings had changed from what they were all those years ago.  
-  
“One caramel macchiato, please.”  
“I’ll have the same.”  
“Cool,” the barista said, picking up a Sharpie. “And your names?”  
“Dan and Phil.”  
They collected their drinks a few minutes later and strode out the door, chatting idly about where they were going to go to get Dan a new jacket.   
“I think I’ll try it on in the store and order it online later. I won’t need it for a little bit longer,” Dan said.  
“Why don’t you just buy it now, then? It’s not gonna get any cheaper, and you might have to pay shipping.”  
“Yeah, but I hate walking around with huge bags.”  
“That makes sense.”  
They were so absorbed in their conversation that they didn’t notice when a fifteen-year-old girl sidled up to them shyly. After a couple seconds of awkwardly following them down the block, she tapped Dan on the shoulder.  
“Um, hi? Are you Dan and Phil?” she said. Both men immediately grinned.  
“Yup!” Dan said, putting on his ‘video voice’ a little. “Do you want a photo or anything?”  
“No, no,” the girl said, but now she was smiling too. “I just wanted to tell you that you guys coming out inspired me to come out as well, and I want to thank you for everything you’ve done.”  
“Aww, thank you so much,” Phil said, putting his hand to his heart. “How did it go?”  
The girl’s face fell for a second, but she quickly perked back up. “Uh, it was fine. It was great.”  
“That’s awesome!” Phil said. Dan, however, had gone pale. Had Phil seriously not caught that?  
“Alright, well, thank you again. I can’t wait to see more videos!” the girl said, and then she was gone, back into the crowd of pedestrians around them.  
Dan couldn’t force his feet to move. “Phan” had always existed in a bubble to him. It didn’t affect anyone except him and Phil, right? But here he was, having just spoken to someone who’s life was impacted for the worse by their lie.  
“Hey, Dan, are you okay?”  
Dan shook his head a little, then changed it to a nod. “Yeah. I, um - yeah.”  
He’d made a horrible, horrible mistake.

**Author's Note:**

> does dan sound kinda like an asshole here? good it's deliberate (but future character development is on the way)  
> thanks for reading <3


End file.
